1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the field of communications, and in particular to interactive communications via a computer network.
2. Description of Related Art
Chat spaces are provided by computer network service providers to allow individuals to communicate with each other via the computer network. Typical chat spaces are arranged into one or more chat rooms, where a number of people may meet. Each person has an identifying name or alias, and in some chat spaces, an identifying graphic item in a graphical 2-D or 3-D representation of the chat space. Each person decides which chat room to enter or leave, and who to talk to. People decide what to discuss by the stated topic of the room, or randomly with little or no direction.
Because of the free form nature of chat rooms and chat spaces, they are well suited for engaging in random conversations. To discuss a particular topic of interest, the conventional means of establishing communications is to navigate to a topic-specific chat room in. which that particular topic is routinely discussed. Often times, however, the topic is of passing interest, and a topic-specific chat room for that topic does not exist. Typically, a person who wants to discuss a particular topic of interest will navigate to a chat space having topic-specific chat rooms on related topics, and try to find other people who may be interested in discussing the desired topic of interest. As in any random social gathering, however, rarely do people show up in such chat spaces with the desire to discuss the same topic, and the conversation meanders about a variety of topics until the desired topic is forgotten, or a sufficient interest in the desired topic is generated amongst the other random arrivers to the chat space or room.
A service provider could provide a myriad assortment of topic-specific chat rooms in the hope of allowing a user to find a room in which other people with similar interests will congregate, but such an approach may be infeasible. An index of each chat room and an effective means of finding the chat room that best suits the particular topic that one wants to discuss must be developed and maintained. Although some topics may be timeless, most topics of discussion are temporal, and means must also be developed to continually remove dated topic rooms and add current topic rooms.
Therefore, a need exists for a means of dynamically forming chat rooms that have a high likelihood of containing people desiring to discuss the same topic, yet not requiring the maintenance and overhead associated with topic-specific chat rooms.
This invention is premised on the observation that an event can affect a number of people at the same time, and some of these people may have a desire to discuss that event at that time. For example, when a television news story is broadcast, thousands of people will receive the news at the same time, and it is likely that in at least some households, a discussion will ensue relating to the topic of the news story. Similarly, when a particular play or call is made at a sporting event, the discussions which immediately follow are typically directed to that play or call. That is, the fact that a number of people experience the same event at the same time increases the likelihood that many people would be interested in discussing that same event at that time.
In accordance with this invention, the time that a person initiates a chat session is used as a parameter to determine which chat room the person is placed. Other parameters may also be used, such as the particular television station that the person is watching at that time, the person""s locale, as well as a set of predefined personal interest factors, or profile, associated with the person. For example, the chat server may place the first dozen people who initiate a chat session at 8:02 p.m. on Monday while viewing a given television station, and have expressed an interest in sports, in one chat room, based on the likelihood that these people want to discuss the Monday night football game.
By forming chat rooms based on the time of entry and other relevant factors, the chat rooms are likely to be topic-specific, without incurring the overhead typically associated with the establishment and maintenance of topic-specific chat rooms. Also, these time-of-entry chat rooms can be structured to be of limited duration, obviating the overhead burden of deleting a topic-specific chat room when the topic generates only waning interest.